Modern control devices, in particular for engine control, are made up of a central processing unit (microcontroller) and a set of peripheral chips for realizing the required hardware functions. This set of peripheral chips is typically made up of various application-specific integrated switching circuits (ASIC's) and additional electronic subassemblies. The assignment of the required functions to the various ASIC's and subassemblies of the set of peripheral chips is known as partitioning.
A set of peripheral chips of the engine-control generation according to the related art typically has partitioning that includes two ASIC's. In this context, a first ASIC is provided, which includes the following components: a voltage supply having three different output voltages; three transducer supplies, each of which provides a voltage of 5 volt; a monitoring module; two drivers for bidirectional serial interfaces; a CAN driver; four open-drain low-level signal output stages; a primary relay control; a primary relay output stage; an evaluation circuit for inductive transducers. A second ASIC (ASIC 2) has an eighteen-fold power output stage with rated currents of 0.6 to 3 Ampere as well as 5-Volt monitoring. It should be pointed out that the abbreviation CAN stands for “controller-area network”. This is understood to be a standardized serial bus system for motor vehicles for realizing a mutual information and data exchange among a multitude of electronic control devices.
It is a goal of the present invention to provide an innovative partitioning of a set of peripheral chips, which is able to be utilized in a flexible manner and is thus able to meet future demands. This relates specifically to the partitioning of the set of peripheral chips for the next generation of engine control devices for gasoline and/or diesel engines. It is endeavored, in particular, to provide a basic functionality with as few components as possible; if desired, this basic functionality should be expandable in a simple manner.